BILL ANALYSIS
SB 888
Page 1
Date of Hearing: June 15, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HEALTH
William W. Monning, Chair
SB 888 (Yee) - As Amended: May 18, 2010
SENATE VOTE : 32-0
SUBJECT : Food safety: Asian rice based noodles.
SUMMARY : Requires manufacturers of Asian rice based noodles and
Korean rice cakes to include a label on the product package
indicating the date of manufacture and appropriate time for
consumption, as specified, and permits a food facility to sell
Asian rice based noodles that have been kept at room temperature
for no more than four hours. Specifically, this bill :
1)Directs all manufacturers of Asian rice based noodles to place
a label on the product packaging that indicates the time and
date of manufacture and includes a statement that the noodles
are perishable and must be consumed within four hours of
manufacture.
2)Directs all manufacturers of Korean rice cakes to place a
label issued by the Korean Rice Cake Association Corporation
on the Korean rice cake that indicates the date of manufacture
and includes a statement that the rice cake must be consumed
within one day of manufacture.
3)Allows a food facility to sell Asian rice based noodles that
have been kept at room temperature for a maximum of four hours
if permitted by federal law.
4)Requires Asian rice based noodles kept at room temperature to
be consumed, cooked, or destroyed in a manner approved by the
local enforcement agency within four hours of manufacture.
5)Specifies that Asian rice based noodles kept at room
temperature for more than four hours must be destroyed at the
end of the operating day in a manner approved by the local
enforcement agency.
6)Defines Asian rice based noodles and Korean rice cakes for
purposes of this bill.
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EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law,
administered by the Department of Public Health (DPH), to
regulate the contents, packaging, labeling, and advertising of
food, drugs, and cosmetics.
2)Establishes the California Retail Food Code (CRFC), which
governs all aspects of retail food safety and sanitation in
California.
3)Requires DPH to adopt regulations to implement and administer
CRFC and makes local environmental health departments the
primary enforcement agencies responsible for enforcing CRFC
through food safety inspection programs.
4)Authorizes local enforcement agencies to inspect food
facilities, issue and suspend permits, conduct hearings, take
samples or other evidence, impound food or equipment, and
issue inspection reports.
5)Defines a retail food facility to mean an operation that
stores, prepares, packages, serves, vends, or otherwise
provides food for human consumption at the retail level.
6)Defines potentially hazardous food (PHF) as a food that
requires time or temperature control to limit pathogenic
micro-organism growth or toxin formation. Excludes from the
definition foods that have a pH level of 4.6 or below, foods
that have a water activity (Aw) value of 0.85 or less,
commercially processed food products in unopened hermetically
sealed containers, or food that has been shown by appropriate
microbial challenge studies approved by the local enforcement
agency not to support the rapid and progressive growth of
infectious or toxigenic microorganisms as specified.
7)Requires specified PHF to be held at or below 41 degrees
Fahrenheit, or kept at or above 135 degrees Fahrenheit at all
times. Allows certain PHF to be held for up to four hours
without having to be temperature controlled.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs.
COMMENTS :
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1)PURPOSE OF THIS BILL . The author asserts that California
Asian rice based noodlemakers have been shutting their doors
and eliminating jobs because of a questionable interpretation
of current law that requires these noodles, long considered a
staple of Asian cuisine, to be refrigerated rather than
maintained at room temperature, which is current industry
practice. The author notes that current law requires certain
foods to be held at or below 41 degrees Fahrenheit for
refrigeration or kept at or above 135 degrees after cooking.
The author argues that this requirement should not apply to
Asian rice based noodles because they are meant to be kept at
room temperature for up to four hours, and any change in
production would change a standard used by Asian communities
for thousands of years. This bill is intended to prohibit the
sale of these noodles unless the package is labeled with date
and time of manufacture and includes a warning to consumers
that the noodles must be consumed within four hours of
manufacture.
2)BACKGROUND . This bill defines an Asian rice based noodle as a
confection containing rice powder, water, wheat starch, and
vegetable cooking oil that cannot include any animal fats or
any other products derived from animals. The preparation of
an Asian rice based noodle is by a traditional method that
includes cooking by steam at a minimum of 130 degrees
Fahrenheit for at least four minutes. The noodles are usually
made from dough of finely ground rice and water and are
grayish-white in color. They are available in two distinct
forms, rice stick noodles, which are thin and thread-like, and
broad rice stick noodles, which are flat and ribbon-like.
Asian rice based noodles are commonly used in soups and
stir-fry dishes throughout Asia including China, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
3)STATE REGULATION OF PHF . The CRFC establishes uniform
statewide health and sanitation standards for food facilities
to ensure that food consumed by individuals is pure, safe, and
unadulterated. Primary enforcement responsibility lies with
local health agencies. If a food facility is found to be in
violation of the CRFC, the local enforcement officer is
authorized to impound food that is deemed or suspected to be
contaminated or adulterated. The CRFC defines PHF as a food
that requires time or temperature control to limit the growth
of pathogenic micro-organisms or the formation of toxins that
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may cause food infections. Food is excluded from this
definition if it has been shown by appropriate microbial
challenge studies, approved by the local county health
department, not to support the rapid and progressive growth of
infectious or toxigenic microorganisms that may cause food
infections. Under the CRFC, if a facility only uses time as
the public health control for PHF, rather than both time and
temperature, then the facility is required to mark or
otherwise identify the food with an indication of the specific
time that is four hours past the point when the food has been
removed from temperature control; and, the food has to be
cooked and served, served if it is ready-to-eat, or discarded
within the initial four hour period after it is has been
removed from temperature control.
4)PHF STUDY . Pursuant to AB 2214 (Tran), Chapter 160, Statutes
of 2006, DPH conducted a study of the sale and consumption of
three traditional Asian food items, Banh Tet, Banh Chung, and
Moon Cakes, after enforcement actions by local jurisdictions
to require refrigeration of these products resulted in
complaints from the manufacturers and the community that the
products became unpalatable after refrigeration. The study
states many of the new and modified food products developed in
the U.S. each year meet California's statutory definition of
PHF. According to the study, no regulatory agency has the
resources to conduct necessary safety studies on these
products that seek to be exempted from time and/or temperature
controls in current law that have been enacted to reduce the
public health risk to consumers. The study adds that
anecdotal reports of these products not being associated with
an outbreak are not sufficient to circumvent existing
scientifically-based requirements and safety studies for time
and temperature control exemptions. According to the study,
microbial challenge studies, which use accepted industry and
academic methods to introduce likely pathogens onto foods and
then monitor their ability to survive, grow, and/or produce
toxins at several points in time, are considered the gold
standard for assessing whether food products are classified as
PHF. However, the entity contacted to conduct the study
mandated in AB 2214, the University of California Laboratory
for Research in Food Preservation, relied on established
microbiological models to estimate the ability of selected
pathogens and toxins to survive or grow in the three Asian
food items because a microbial challenge studies would have
required significant resources to complete and no funding was
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made available to support the study.
5)KOREAN RICE CAKES . According to the author, this bill is
modeled after AB 187 (Liu), Chapter 204, Statutes of 2001,
which allows food establishments to sell Korean rice cakes, as
defined, that have been at room temperature for less than 24
hours, and requires manufacturers of Korean rice cakes to
provide a date stamp indicating the date of manufacture and a
warning label that the rice cake must be consumed within one
day of manufacture. At the time, the author argued that
forcing Korean rice cake bakers to refrigerate the rice cakes
after preparation made the cakes harden and therefore reduced
their marketability and desirability. Laboratory work
provided by the author at the time found that the water
activity level of Korean rice cakes was either below or
marginally above the level of 0.85 or less, which currently
exempts food products from the definition of PHF. Additional
background information prepared then by Irvine Analytical
Laboratories confirmed that 24 hours, which is the standard
time that Korean rice cakes are maintained at room
temperature, was not sufficient for the product to become
significantly contaminated.
6)PRIOR LEGISLATION .
a) AB 2214 establishes the Asian Traditional Food Act and
directs DPH to conduct a study on the effects of current
retail food safety and sanitation standards on the sale and
consumption of specified traditional Asian food.
b) AB 2763 (Diaz) of 2004 would have allowed temporary food
facilities to maintain sushi, teriyaki chicken, and
Japanese sweet cakes at room temperature for up to 24
hours, and would have required these foods to be labeled
with the time of manufacture. AB 2763 failed passage in
the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
c) AB 187 allows retail food facilities to sell Korean rice
cakes that have been kept at room temperature for less than
24 hours and directs Korean rice cake manufacturers to
provide a date stamp indicating the date of manufacture and
a warning label that the rice cake must be consumed within
one day of manufacture.
7)SUPPORT . The City and County of San Francisco writes in
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support that Asian rice based noodles are frequently prepared
and consumed in San Francisco and the City has not experienced
any safety issue with the product locally. Additionally, the
City and County notes that it does not treat rice noodles as a
hazardous food or require refrigeration for fresh noodles and
the normal cooking of rice noodles would also be expected to
limit the potential for hazards to people. The California
Rice Industry Association states that it is critical that
regulations accurately reflect how ethnic foods have been
produced and consumed for centuries and allowing rice noodle
manufacturers to continue to safely produce and sell fresh
product is essential from a cultural standpoint and preserves
traditional cuisines that have become a part of California.
Numerous individual restaurants point out that current
interpretation of state law requiring refrigeration of the
noodles threatens this staple of Asian cuisine by changing the
texture of the noodles, making them stiff, and reducing
freshness. Finally, the California Small Business Association
adds that this bill protects Asian small businesses that make
Asian rice based noodles while ensuring that the safe
production of this product is not at the expense of jobs and
misinterpretation of regulations and laws.
8)SUGGESTED TECHNICAL AMENDMENT . On page 3, line 23 and lines
27-28, before "enforcement agency" insert "local".
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Rice Industry Association
California Small Business Association
City and County of San Francisco
Fat Family Restaurants (prior version)
Koi Palace Restaurant (prior version)
Lam Hoa Thuan Restaurant (prior version)
Lucky K.T. Co Inc. (prior version)
Organization of Chinese Americans, Inc., Silicon Valley Chapter
(prior version)
San Francisco Department of Public Health (prior version)
Sincere Orient Food Company (prior version)
Southern California Teo Chew Association (prior version)
Yan Can Cook Production (prior version)
Several individuals
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Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Cassie Rafanan / HEALTH / (916)
319-2097